ASO: How optimize your mobile app for Google Play & iTunes store

ASO (App Store Optimization) or SEO for your mobile app is fundamental to have many users downloading your app. With mobile use showing a continuing growth over the last number of years, users that search for apps in the iTunes Store and Google Play look set to continue to grow.

And the signals that confirm this scenario come from other aspects:

Google, Apple and Facebook are promoting app indexing (or the ability to read individual app’s content just like a web site);
Google has started to make available the opportunity to plan your campaigns (via Google AdWords) to promote within Google Apps Play;
even Apple is pushing search outside the usual contexts (search engine, app store) even at operating system level with iOS9, allowing you to search directly from the phone, suggesting, even if not necessarily applications already on your smartphone.

In short, there are many new products coming out all with a pretty hectic pace.

Here are to top tips on how to optimize your mobile app for Google Play & iTunes store:

– Create a dedicated landing page on your corporate web site to receive visitors via normal SEO methods. Then of course you add call to action buttons to iTunes & Google Play stores.

– Tell your family and friends about your app, and try an persuade them to talk about your app to their friends and colleagues.

– Blog about your app on other tech related sites

– App name/title must be short (25 characters) for iTunes store so make it count and do your research of your target market

– a memorable name is always a good strategy

– app name is included in the AAS url

– App Description: the first 167 words are the most important and up to 4,000 characters in Google Play

– For Google Play remember to repeat your focus keywords at least 5 times (don’t over do it though)

– Logo should communicate what your app is about, this of course is very important when users are searching through the relative app stores.

– Choose the best category for your app because many users find apps by searching in a particular category.

– User ratings: the quality and quantity of user rating highly influence the amount of downloads of your app. It is estimated that 2/3 of all apps do not have ratings for them. 58% of users usually check reviews before installing an app.

– Update your app often to increase visibility and downloads

– Build a reminder in your app to increase the amount of users who leave a review

– Back-links to your app page on Google Play add your visibility

– The amount of people using your app counts (installs vs uninstalls) and the amount of people use your app (as apposed to just installing it and forgetting it’s there)

– For iOS use the AppMind website to discover any iOs app keywords

– You must be in the top ten of your category or you just will not get traction

– Check our related searches for keyword ideas

– Create an “how to” video on You tube to show how your app works. Remember to add a link to your page on the relative store.

– check out these 10 tools to help you with Google Play Store Optimization

– Check out your competitor apps in case you missed any keyword opportunities

– Check your app statistics software to see usage data, Google Analytics can now do this